A spoiler-free retrospective podcast and blog about Buffy the Vampire Slayer by Robin and Cordia.

Posted by: thebuffyrewatch | July 15, 2013

Cordia’s Review: S6, E13 – Dead Things

Dead Things
Season 6, Episode 13
Original airing: 2/5/2002

My Rating: 68

The Good: I think this was a great episode to be a turning point for the show. The Trio is finally threatening and showing some characterization. Buffy is finally dealing with her relationship with Spike. Unfortunately, the two stories didn’t mesh together well enough for me to call this an amazing episode.

Warren has been showing sparks of a willingness to go further than the average person in his pursuit of his goals, but here he really takes it that step further. His decision to ensnare Katrina and treat her as a sex slave is incredibly amoral and he obviously does it knowing full well what he is choosing. What really struck me was his nonchalance when Katrina came back to herself and was yelling at the Trio. He only panics when she threatens to go to the cops.

After he kills her, Warren detaches completely from the situation and is pleased in the end to have gotten away with murder.

Jonathon is the most interesting to me, though. He’s obviously well caught into the fantasy of turning any beautiful woman into a willing sex slave. He doesn’t see them as people. But when Katrina points out that it’s rape, Jonathon immediately comes crashing back to earth. Suddenly, he finds himself in a crazy situation over which he has no control. A girl is dead and he is party to that. I like the moment at the end where he goes along with Andrew and Warren, but doesn’t think all of this is cool any more.

Buffy experiences quite the arc here. She’s reached such a point of enjoying herself with Spike, she’s convinced there’s something very, very wrong with her. She starts to realize that it doesn’t matter what’s happening with her, Spike will never be good after Katrina’s death. This is her first step back towards who she used to be – the upright Slayer. She unleashes first her anger at herself upon Spike. Then, she releases her disgust at herself with Tara.

Reality is a big theme in this episode. Jonathon and Buffy both finally face the music, even though they don’t really want to. Warren has completely divorced himself from the world and Katrina has her reality taken away from her.

The Bad: My main issue is with the duct tape used to connect the Buffy/Spike story to the Trio story. I have nothing against the concept, but it felt very haphazard and loose. And it seemed to me like it was too much of a coincidence and too accidental. Buffy acts as if she did it on purpose. I understand that she has a very high moral standard of herself, but this felt inappropriate for some reason. It just didn’t work.

Favorite Moment: The moment that topped this episode for me was Buffy’s emotional break down at the end. I thought this worked perfectly with Tara’s character and was exactly the person she needed to have with her when reality finally came calling.

The Bottom Line: I really liked this episode and what it did to enhance the Trio and move along Buffy’s recovery story. But while I greatly enjoyed the story lines independently, the way they were brought together was so haphazard that it left me actually distracted from the episode.